


All You Never Say

by nymeriadirewolff (bbl8te)



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arya-centric, Canon, F/M, Gen, Gendrya - Freeform, POV Arya Stark, Romance, Season 8, Sex, Sisterly bonding, Slow Burn, arya and sansa are bffs, i'm trying to justify all the hurt feelings i have from season 8 idk if its working, mostly?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 20:05:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18785263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbl8te/pseuds/nymeriadirewolff
Summary: Arya could enjoy whatever this feeling was with someone who was both a friend and a little more. He could feed her soul, if only for a moment, and give her something that no one else could take away.Arya only wished that when that time came,  she felt more like a real person instead of a shallow imitation of one.---------Arya’s perspective on her relationship with Gendry throughout season 8. There will be missing scenes, sisterly bonding, Jon being a doofus, and Bran giving vague answers.





	All You Never Say

**Author's Note:**

> I read Arya as a very damaged, traumatized individual, struggling to find her way back to her humanity... while simultaneously fighting against it. Hopefully that reads here. This is me trying to make sense of Arya's actions in the show, as they're presented, and giving context for them in a very Gendrya-centric way.

It was a cruel irony that it took the end of the world to finally bring Arya home. When Hotpie had told her at the Crossroads how Jon had retaken hold of Winterfell, it had shook the very earth beneath her feet. Her entire journey back to Westeros had been as a slave to vengeance against the Lannisters. It had been a journey through a darkness so whole that it clawed its way deep inside of her and took root. It had spread, grown vines and filled any space she might have had left for softness.

 

Now, things were different. Arya had found something to new to live for and it lit a small fire in the hollow caverns of her heart. The time Arya spent getting to know Sansa and Bran all over again had continued to feed her emptiness. Their triumph over Littlefinger had only cemented their bond. She saw a lot of their mother in Sansa, and Sansa said she saw a lot of their father in Arya. Both saw little in Bran of the sweet boy they used to know, but they learned to accept that this was how it was meant to be. The Stark children were closer than they’d ever been, stronger than they’d ever been, and Arya felt for the first in a long time the defenses around herself start to fall away.

 

So long as they were together, they would weather the worst of winter and the long night that came.

 

Presently, Arya and Sansa had stepped outside in the midday to sit with Bran by the Godswood. Sansa only allowed herself brief moments of respite as Lady of Winterfell. Her duties were enough to make Arya’s head whirl, she didn’t know how her sister handled it all with so much grace. Even so, Sansa made it a point to spend at least a little time after lunch each day with Bran and Arya. After so many years apart and so much conflict, it seemed as though Sansa couldn’t get enough of her younger siblings. It was funny, Arya thought, since in their youth Sansa couldn’t get away from them fast enough.

 

Sansa had spent some time updating them on the affairs of the castle and their plans on how they would house their new guests. “In any case, Jon should be home soon,” Sansa told them later on, looking up at the lush branches of the Godswood. “Though I assume you already knew that,” she addressed Bran. He nodded to her, and for a millisecond his lips quirked in a knowing smile.

 

“They should be here within a day,” he said, in that hollow voice Arya had come to know. He looked at Arya then, those seemingly omniscient eyes boring into her. “With a few people you know.”

 

Arya and Sansa looked at each other. “I don’t know many people,” Arya told her.

 

“Yes,” Bran replied knowingly, then looked away. “But the ones you do are on their way. ”

 

Sansa raised a brow at Arya. “Hopefully that’s... good?”

 

Arya shrugged. “Most of the people I’ve met aren’t the kind I’d want to meet again.”

“I think you’ll be happy to see some of them,” Bran continued cryptically.

 

Arya raised a brow at him. “I can’t think of a single person I’d want to see other than Jon. Everyone else I’ve ever liked is dead.”

 

“Well, I suppose if Bran thinks you’ll be happy you may as well take his word for it.” She walked towards their younger brother and flattened a wayward cowlick of Bran’s hair. It was such an absent-mindedly motherly thing that Arya felt the ache of it deep in her chest. This new version of Sansa was no longer soft nor sweet, but the love she had for them ran as deep in her bones as it did in Arya’s. She saw it for herself in these almost careless moments of tenderness that Sansa gave them. For a brief moment, even Bran looked up at Sansa with an inscrutable expression, then returned his gaze to the face of great tree.

 

“I should head back,” Sansa told them finally with a sigh. “Apparently we’re going to have _a lot_ of new mouths to feed, which isn’t exactly the surprise _I_ needed,” she muttered. “You should come with us, Bran. They told me you haven’t had lunch yet.”

 

“Alright,” he acquiesced simply. Arya automatically took hold of his wheelchair and rolled him along, back towards the main castle.

 

“Would you like to know who’s coming?” Bran asked her, not particularly seeming to care one way or another.

 

“I guess if the Night King isn’t among these surprise visitors, it doesn’t really matter who it is,” Arya replied as they walked. Regardless, she considered this information. There were so many she’d thought dead and gone… And perhaps, if she really considered it, a few she’d closed the door of her heart on.

 

Hope was a dangerous game to play in Arya’s world and she’d learned soon enough to stay far away from it. She’d hoped her father would survive and he’d been executed. She’d hoped Winterfell would stay safe, and then Theon had burned it down and the Boltons had taken over. She’d hoped to find Robb and their mother at the Twins only to arrive just in time to find them butchered. So many other moments of tragedy flashed through her that the pain of it all would have racketed through her small frame, in another life. Now, Arya had that grief locked far way, outside the furthest reaches of her mind.

 

Arya couldn’t hope anymore. She could only take each day as it came and be grateful for what she still had in the morning.

 

She had to stay focused. Winter was here and there was still preparation to be done before the long night came.

 

\------

 

Bran had certainly been right about the visitors to Winterfell being ghosts of her past. As expected, seeing Jon had made her heart soar. There he was, seven years later, King in the North and _thriving._ He looked strong and capable, a natural-born leader as he rode beside the Dragon Queen and her thousands of Unsullied and Dothraki.

 

This overwhelming surge of joy was followed by the mixed emotions she’d felt to seeing The Hound. Certainly, he couldn’t have been the one Bran though she’d be happy to see? He was a  miserable reminder of her suffering and she’d certainly thought them dead, or had at least hoped for it in some distant life. But in the same moment Arya considered how stubbornly the old dog escaped death, the next face she saw stole her breath away.

 

Gendry Waters: armorer’s apprentice, fatherless bastard, and the only man who wasn’t family that she’d ever trusted. She saw visions of an old life flash before her: the road to the Wall, evading the Goldcloaks, the prison yard of Harrenhal, the campfires of the Brotherhood. Each was stamped with the memory of her bull-headed Gendry. She saw him protecting her when he didn't need to, and then teasing her until the crows feet at the corners of his eyes crinkled. During those long months, Gendry had never slept more than an arm's length away or even ate without ensuring Arya was being fed as well. She knew what his rough hands felt like in hers, the cadence of his voice, the tilt of his head when he was confused and the stubborn lock of his jaw when he was angry.

 

Her heart swelled with the same affection she'd had for him so long ago. Gods, she’d been almost certain he’d died at the hands of the Red Woman. In her more innocent youth she’d fantasized that he’d been let go, or escaped and disappeared to some faraway place where no more highborn lords could force him to do their bidding.

 

Her friendship with Gendry following the tragedy in Kings Landing had made her feel anchored to this world, instead of adrift at sea. She’d loved him as much as any child could, even though the threat of losing anyone was such a tangible reality for her. Still, she’d dared against all odds to hope for them to survive it together. She wanted him close, had even said so with the heart-wrenching confession: “I can be your family.” She’d meant it with every fiber of her being, and she knew he believed her by the pained face he’d made when he’d stared back at her.

 

But Gendry was nothing if not stubborn. Their social standings were enough to drive a wedge between their friendship, and their friendship wasn’t enough to make him come North with her. He needed somewhere of his own and he needed his independence. Then, before he’d even had the chance to create a life for himself, the Red Woman had snatched him away and he was never to be seen again.

 

The loss had tore her apart. After all the murder, all of the people who had come and gone, she didn't know she'd still had such an overwhelming capacity for grief. It woke her from sleep in fits and starts and plagued her days with anxiety and sadness. The noise in her heart only quieted once she’d added Berric Dondarian and the Red Woman to her list of people she’d one day kill.

 

Now, by some unimaginable miracle, Gendry was in Winterfell as one of her brother’s followers. Never in a million years could she have seen this happening. Gendry looked older and harder, with an edge to the way he stared straight ahead. He was different now, she could sense it. After all, so was she.

 

And yet… Arya couldn’t help her overwhelming joy at simply knowing he was _alive._

 

She smiled as she watched him pass, high up on his horse, finally a man who seemed sure of himself and where he belonged in the world.

 

\-----

 

Some days later, Arya was trying in vain to fall asleep. Sansa had suggested Arya take Sansa’s old room in Winterfell, since it was larger than Arya’s childhood bedroom. Arya simply went along with it, not particularly caring about where she slept. She’d spent too long sleeping on the ground outdoors to really care for a few more feet of space.

 

She was having a difficult time adjusting to this new lifestyle. All of the old comforts of her youth: a soft bed, a room with a fireplace, heavy sheets and blankets… none of them soothed her anymore. Instead, they scratched at the raw surface of her heart as they reminded her of who she used to be, once upon a lifetime ago.

 

She sighed frustratedly. Arya tried to occupy her mind with other thoughts. Outsmarting Death was always at the forefront of her waking hours, but lately they’d been overtaken with plans of _where_ and _when_ and _how._ She considered the new weapon she’d be receiving soon. Her training with the Waif had proved to her a staff's usefulness, particularly if she could find someone to fashion one that broke into two weapons when the time came.

 

Thankfully, Arya knew of a talented pair of hands who could do just the job.

 

Arya felt heat creep into her face as she considered that sentence, which may have had more meaning than she wanted to admit. She closed her eyes and let the emotion burrow beneath her skin, hoping it could find its way to her heart.

 

It was a pleasurable feeling, but it was still quite new for her. She remembered her girlhood feelings for Gendry, the ones that didn’t have to do with friendship at all. Or maybe they did, in some roundabout way. Those feelings didn’t hold a candle to the inferno she now felt herself in. As a child, Arya had never thought much her childish crush on the kind and handsome boy who she’d grown so fond of. She hadn’t really known _what_ to do, apart from oggle at him whenever he took his shirt off.She now had a much better idea of what to do with them.

Ruthless killer she was, but immune to feeling she was not. She found herself suddenly flooded with emotions she’d never given herself the luxury of experiencing. They had happened upon her as suddenly as the rain, and had overwhelmed her just as quickly. They washed away her steely self-control and pummeled against the iron-wrought cage around her heart.

 

She remembered yesterday’s encounter with this older, harder Gendry. Arya had been watching him from afar for some time, trying to create an image of who this new man was before she deigned approach him. His fellow smiths seemed to like him well enough, and so did Jon judging by the friendly way they interacted. 

Then, seeming satisfied with lurking, Arya had finally sought him out in the forges. He was even more striking up close. Though just as handsome as she'd remembered, his eyes now carried the more world-weary look of a boy forced to become a man in just a few short years. His cheekbones had sharpened, his jaw stifferend, and his expression had turned harder. The severity of him was highlighted by the fact that he'd shaved all of his hair off while a light stubble dusted his jaw. It was a no-nonsense sort of look, but Arya hadn't been intimidated. After all, hadn't she also changed tremendously in their time apart?

 

She closed her eyes and ran a hand idly along her breast, thinking about those soft blue eyes. It awakened a curious sensation in the pit of her stomach, one that made her feel both anxious and electrified.

 

"You look good," he’d blurted out immediately. From the moment those awkward words fell from his lips, Arya's heart began to stutter a hopeful tattoo and it hadn't stopped since. He’d looked at her with some sort of odd wonderment, as though he couldn’t quite believe her to be real. Had he also thought about her, during their time apart? If he did, it must have only been as a skinny little wild child who needed looking after. 

 

Arya was nearly certain of Gendry’s attraction towards her. She hadn’t expected anything when she'd approached him in the forge, short of rekindling the connection to her old friend and requesting his aid with her weapon. She hadn’t anticipated Gendry seeing her as anything more, in her youth or now. Afterall, when people complimented her, it was never to say that she was attractive. They complimented her fighting, her candor, her courage... The only time she was called graceful was when she wielded Needle. Hotpie had once told her she was pretty, but the last he'd seen her she'd been masquerading as a lowborn runaway, so his judgement wasn't exactly reliable.

 

No, Arya had always privately resigned herself to never being the same kind of beautiful as Sansa or her beloved mother, and she'd readily accepted that. Earnestly, she hadn't cared at all for it, until she'd again laid eyes on the man who she'd wanted so desperately to hang on to all those years ago. Now, Arya found herself examining her reflection more than she’d like to admit. She scrutinized her own childish face, her slender physique, and wondered what kind of woman Gendry thought about when he stayed up late at night. Probably someone with huge tits and fiery hair. She imagined the Red Woman and pushed the image away.

Those idiotic thoughts clouded her judgement and distracted her from accomplishing her mission. She cursed Gendry Waters to the seven hells and back for making her as stupid as the women she used to ridicule.

 

Still.

 

Try as she might to ignore it, the fact was there: Arya wanted him to like her. She _craved_ it. It was a new brand of hunger she’d never discovered before and it startled her to find that she was suddenly ravenous for it.

 

Arya pressed a hand to her heart, could feel the hopeful beating of it and tried to remember when she’d last felt this human.

 

Her mind travelled back to that day in the forge. Any doubts Arya had about her attractiveness were thrown out the window the moment she and Gendry first laid eyes on each other. It was like dragonfire, the all-encompassing heat she felt throughout her body. It spread rapid and hot until she was sure it would burn her alive. It was a violent unexpected thing, and Arya had struggled to play the Game of Faces when Gendry was looking at her like she was ripe for eating. He bantered cooly with her, but she could tell her was trying to re-establish that unamed  _something_ they'd had between them.

 

She’d never in a million years through her new skills would come in handy for this kind of situation. Arya was in tune to every millimeter quirk of Gendry’s face, every quickening breath, every flick of his eyes. She noted in awe how the pupils of Gendry's sea blue eyes would widen whenever he looked upon her, or how his gaze would flit to her profile when he thought she wasn't looking. She'd caught him looking at her from head to toe, then looking away, and then looking again as though he couldn't quite help himself. His breath quickened whenever she came close... How she wished she could hear the beating of his heart. She imagined pressing her cheek to his chest, hearing that steady rhythm, and then kissing that same spot.

 

At this rate, Arya wouldn’t be sleeping at all tonight.

 

With a sigh, she rose begrudgingly from her bed and threw on a robe. She left her room and went down the long, dark corridor until she reached her parents’ old bedroom. She slipped inside.

 

Sansa was lying there, her bright hair spilling about her like a red halo. In the glow of the fireplace, the effect was practically ethereal.

 

Arya learned quickly upon returning to Winterfell that the trauma of Sansa’s past hadn’t left her sister completely. She’d discovered it by doing this very thing, sneaking about into her room and nearly jumping out of her own skin when Sansa had risen, crazy-eyed, with a dagger in her hand. The sight had scared even Arya, and she thought she’d seen everything.

 

“Sansa,” Arya whispered. “It’s Arya. Don’t kill me.”

 

Her sister stirred, then woke with a start upon seeing her. “Seven Hells, Arya,” she hissed at her.

 

“I tried to be loud,” Arya offered by way of apology.

 

“Is everything alright?” Sansa asked. She made to sit up but Arya stopped her.

 

“Everything’s fine. I just couldn’t sleep.”

 

“Hmph. So you thought you’d come bother me instead, is that it?” Sansa huffed. She scooted backwards on the large bed and pulled back the heavy furs for her sister to join her.

 

“If I don’t keep you on your toes, you’ll get old. You’ll be as wrinkled and grey as Old Nan.”

 

“Piss off,” came the grumbling reply.

 

Arya grinned and felt it was a true, happy smile, and not part of the Game of Faces. Lately, the difference was becoming easier to distinguish.

 

She crawled beneath the covers and pulled them up to her nose. They felt warm and familiar and, impossibly, like her parents’ bed had when she’d crawled in to sleep with them after a nightmare. Arya stared at her sleeping sister, picking apart which features of hers were more Tully and which were more Stark.

 

After a few quiet minutes, Sansa opened her eyes again and stared back. “I can never tell what you’re thinking,” her older sister admitted quietly.

 

“I could say the same about you.”

 

“At least I _tell_ you what’s bothering me. You keep everything inside. The only time I know something is bothering you is when you crawl into my bed like a child.”

 

Arya considered telling Sansa about Gendry, but it seemed like such a foolish thought when Death was, quite literally, on its way for all of them. She thought of how vapid she would seem, thinking about the touch of a man when she should have been contemplating survival. In the end, Sansa saved her the trouble of deciding.

 

“I can try and guess, if that’s easier,” Sansa offered.

 

“Alright.”

 

Sansa rubbed her eyes and stared more intently at Arya. “My first thought is the Targaryen woman. But we already talked about that, so I don’t think that’s it. We both agree that Jon is an idiot.”

 

 _An idiot in love,_ Arya thought idly. Jon was blinded by his feelings for his queen. Arya would rather be dead than fall so deep.

 

“Any other guesses?”

 

“Hmm. Aside from our imminent Death, it’s getting a little difficult.” Suddenly, Sansa’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Is it the blacksmith?”

 

Arya wasn’t eating anything but somehow she practically choked.

 

“Aha!” Sansa’s tired face spread into a lovely grin. “I know everything that happens around here, Arya. It’s one of the perks of being Lady of Winterfell.”

 

“That explains how our mother always knew what I was up to before I could even do it.”

 

Sansa laughed. “I don’t think I’d even need to be a Lady to know this, though. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, in the dining hall. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He looks like he wishes it was you he was eating. I don’t think I’m the only one who's noticed, either.”

 

Arya felt her cheeks heat up with... embarrassment? Gods, she'd forgotten how horrible that particular feeling was.

 

“Jon hasn’t noticed, of course. He’s too busy giving that same look to the Dragon bitch. I won't tell him, obviously, if you do anything...Are you going to do anything?”

 

“Do anything?”

 

“You know.”

 

Arya narrowed her eyes. Sansa mimicked her expression and narrowed hers right back.

 

“I can’t really think about that right now.”

 

“And why not?”

 

“Because…” _Because we could all die. Because I need to save you, and Jon, and Bran, and him, and everyone else in this frozen wasteland. Because Gendry is laughing and breathing and alive, and I’m still only learning to get back to all of that._

 

“Arya,” Sansa said seriously. She took her sisters hand and squeezed it. “Listen to me, for once in your life, because I'm not going to repeat myself. Having a man love you, not the way that Jon or our father or brothers loved you… Having a man truly _love_ you and _cherish_ you, your body, your mind, your soul… It’s something I only ever dreamed about. It was in illusion I had shattered over, and over, and over again. It was painful. It was dark. I still feel the hurt of it every night before I go to bed, the loss of it with every beat of my heart. It stole something from me that I don’t think I will ever get back.”

 

She squeezed Arya’s hand harder, in an almost painful grip. “If you think that even for a moment that you have a chance of experiencing something pleasurable, with a man who is, above all else, _kind_ to you _,_ you have to at least try. If you don’t, then you’re as stupid as I always thought you were.”

 

Arya lay in stunned silence, with Sansa’s eyes pinning her there. Sansa had never spoken to her about the details of what Joffrey and later Ramsay had done to her. She’d skated over the details like the top layer of ice over a deep ocean. The gravity of Sansa’s confession hit Arya squarely in the stomach and knocked the breath right out of her.

 

“There…. There isn’t time for all of that,” she offered, hating how small she sounded.

 

“Well, you better hurry up then,” Sansa said primly. She released Arya’s hand and tucked the furs further upwards. “Jon speaks well of him, for what that's worth these days. He strikes me as a good man, too, and I don't know how many of those we have left." Sansa yawned deeply. Very unladylike. "It doesn’t have be more or less than you want it to be, Arya. If I were you, I’d take what I could get before the Long Night makes sure you never get the chance.”

 

Arya stayed up long after Sansa had fallen asleep. She listened to the steady rhythm of her sister's soft breath and thought of how much had been taken from both of them. Sansa had never had the opportunity to give her body freely to another person. She’d had her own body wrenched from her, abused, and soiled before she’d had the chance. 

 

Arya did have the chance. And she could, really, if she only reached out a hand. She could enjoy whatever this feeling was with someone who was both a friend and a little more. He could feed her soul, if only for a moment, and give her something that no one would take away.

 

Arya only wished that when that time came,  she felt more like a real person instead of a shallow imitation of one.

  


**Author's Note:**

> catch me crying on tumblr @nymeriadirewolff
> 
> the title comes from "All You Never Say" by Birdy, a very Gendrya song imo…
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
